Let's go to John chapter 7 this
evening, the book of John chapter 7. And we started in John 7 last
week, so we'll sort of pick up where we left off. Here's my subject, and you'll locate the subject
in verses Specifically, verses 16, 17, and 18 of John 7. Subject is His doctrine, then His will, and His glory. Look at verse 16. Jesus answered
them and said, My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me."
There's His doctrine. Not interested in your doctrine.
Not interested in my doctrine. But I'm interested in God's doctrine. That's true doctrine. And secondly, in verse 17, If
any man will do his will, then he shall know of the doctrine. Whether it be of God or whether
I speak of myself, I'm interested in God's will. I'm not going
to talk about man's will. I'm not going to talk about your
will. I'm not going to talk about my
will. I want to talk about His will. Talk about God's will.
God's doctrine. God's will. Then, the next verse,
verse 18. He that speaketh of himself,
that is, that one whose doctrine originates with himself, that's
the one who seeketh his own glory. But, he that seeketh God's glory. His glory that sent Him. The same is true. And no unrighteousness
is in Him. We're not going to talk about
any glory going to you or any of it coming to me. We're going
to talk about His glory. Let's talk about God's doctrine,
God's will, God's glory. Let's see the setting of these
great statements by the Lord Jesus. As we stated last week,
our Lord's been up in Galilee. Spent several months there. We've
said between chapter 6 and chapter 7, about 6 or 7 months go by. He stays up there because they
hate Him awful, something awful down in Jerusalem. So He walked
in, in the northern area, that is, in Galilee. That's where
he spent time. But then it was time for him
to go to another festival. As you know, the Jewish males
were required to attend annual festivals every year, those being
three of them, Passover, and then 50 days later, Pentecost,
Then after that, the Feast of Tabernacles. Our Lord Jesus,
being the man born under God's law, he had to keep all of the
law. Civil law, parental law, religious
law, God's law. God's law said he had to attend
these feasts, and our Lord did just that. Now this is the Redeemer
who goes in verse number 10 after His brethren go to Jerusalem.
He didn't go down with them, He goes secretly. But this is
the Master, this is the Redeemer who had said some things nobody
had ever heard before. He made some bold statements. And the things that he had to
say about himself were accurate, but they, for the most part,
they were not received as the truth by the Jews. The reason,
one of the reasons, is because he looked in appearance like
all the rest of the men of Galilee. He spoke like them. You see, His deity, it was very
real. This was God in the flesh. But men didn't see His deity. All they saw was just a man. And in outward appearance, He
looked like any other man. There was no difference. Now,
there was a difference in the way He conducted Himself. There
was a difference in His speech. But as far as the way He looked,
there wasn't any difference. You see, His deity was underneath
a veil. That is, His flesh. Look with
me in Hebrews chapter 10. This is exactly what the writer
of the book of Hebrews, whoever it was, Spirit of God. Maybe it was the Apostle Paul.
Maybe it was somebody else. That doesn't really matter. But
this is what the Spirit of God has to say to us about the Lord
Jesus and this veil that is His flesh. Look at Hebrews chapter
10 and verse 19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new
and living way which he had consecrated or dedicated for us through the
veil." You say, well, what is he speaking about? Well, then
he tells us. That is to say, his flesh. That is his nature, his human
nature. We know He's God. We know there's
deity there. There's deity on the earth. It says, great is the mystery
of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. But there's this, what he calls
the flesh, that is the veil that's over His deity. Now we know that
on the Mount of Transfiguration, He, as it were, pulled back the
veil. And the Scripture says that His
disciples, Peter, James, and John, they saw His face brighter
than the sun. And even His very clothing was
glistering. And then, as it were, He closed
the veil. And then he looked just like
any other man. He closed the veil. Back of the veil is the
very glory of God. It's like in the Old Testament.
You had the tabernacle in the wilderness. And there's that
back veil that separated the holy place from the holy of holies. Back there in the Holy of Holies,
there's the Shekinah glory of God. It burst forth out of the
top of the tabernacle and lit up all of the camp of Israel
at night. That's God's glory. But during the daytime, the glory
was veiled when you entered into the holy place. And of course,
only the priesthood could enter into the holy place. They didn't
see that glory back there. Why couldn't they see it? There's
a veil. There's a veil. Nobody could go back there but
one man. He's the high priest. He could
only go back there once a year. And then, not without blood. But there's the Ark of the Covenant
back there. There's the mercy seat. There's
the cherubim on top. There's that bright Shekinah
glory. There's the glory of God. But
it's veiled. See, that's our Savior. His flesh
is the veil. The veil. There's exquisite beauty
in that In that deity of our Lord Jesus, there's the brightness
of God's glory. Hebrews chapter 1. But to the
natural eye, nobody could see that. Because Jesus of Nazareth
looked in appearance just like any other man. Go with me to 1 Samuel chapter
4. Let me show you This illustration
in 1 Samuel chapter 4, I'm sure you'll remember when the Ark
of the Covenant was taken. The Ark of the Covenant, there's
God's glory coming forth through the Mercy Seat. By God, there's
a Mercy Seat over the Ark of the Covenant. In the Ark of the
Covenant, there's the Law of God. Men had broken, but oh,
there's the Mercy Seat. absolutely covered with blood. Can you imagine how much blood
was on the mercy seat? After every year, the high priest
goes in on the Day of Atonement and sprinkles it seven times
with blood? What a bloody lid that was! The mercy seat! Thank God for
the blood that covers the law that we've broken, that covers
our sins! That's what that's a picture
of. Here in 1 Samuel chapter 4, This is when the Ark of the Covenant
was taken. We know the Ark represented the
very presence of God with Israel. Of course, that Ark couldn't
contain the glory of God. The whole world can't contain
His glory. But it represented the fact God
was with Israel. God was with His people. It was a source of blessing to
God's people and a source of sorrow and death for His enemies,
as the Philistines found out pretty quick. But they stole
the ark. There was a great battle. 1 Samuel
4, verse number 10. The Philistines fought and Israel
was smitten. They fled every man into his
tent. There was a very great slaughter
for their fellow of Israel, 30,000 footmen. And the ark of God was
taken and the two sons of Eli. Oh, Eli's sons were so wicked. They were so vile. Hophni and
Phinehas, they died. And of course somebody went running
back to Eli. He sat by the wayside watching. His great concern was for the
Ark of the Covenant. These men came running Yelling. Look at verse 14. Scripture says,
And when Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, What
meaneth the noise of this tumult? The men came in hastily, and
they told Eli. Now Eli was ninety and eight
years old. His eyes were dim. He couldn't
see. One of the men said to him, Eli, I am he that came out of
the army and I fled today out of the army. And he said, what
is there done, my son? What's happened? The messenger
answered and said, Israel has fled before the Philistines. There hath been a great slaughter
among the people, thy two sons also. Hophni and Phinehas are
dead, and the ark of God is taken. And it came to pass when he made
mention of the ark of God, not when he made mention of what
happened to his two sons. He already got word that it's
going to die. He got that word through Samuel. But when he got the word, the
ark of the covenant, the ark of God was gone, he fell from
off the seat backwards by the side of the gate, and his neck
breaking. He died for he is an old man.
He is heavy. He judged Israel for 40 years. And his daughter-in-law, Phineas'
wife, now she's a widow now. But she was soon to bear a child. She was with a child, near to
be delivered. And when she heard the tidings
that the ark of God was taken and that her father-in-law and
her husband was dead, she bowed herself and travail for her pains
came upon her. About the time of her death or
as she was dying, the women that stood by her said unto her, don't
be afraid, fear not, for you've given birth to a son. But she
answered not, neither did she regard it. She acted like she
didn't even hear him. And she named the child Ichabod,
saying, the glory has departed. from Israel because the ark of
God was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband,
and she said, the glory has departed from Israel for the ark of God
is taken. That ark was the glory of the
tabernacle, later it was the glory of the temple. It pictured
the Lord Jesus, and I'll tell you where the Lord Jesus is,
that's where the glory of God is. That's where God's glory
is. Well, that Ark of the Covenant,
when it was in the wilderness, and even when they got into the
Promised Land, they provided a tent for it. It rested in the
Holy of Holies back behind the veil. That veil pictured the nature,
the human nature of our Lord Jesus. And that veil was rent
for us. It was rent for us. Remember
what we read there in Hebrews chapter 10. The veil that is
His flesh. He suffered, He bled, He died
for folks like us to satisfy God's justice. And when the veil
of His tabernacle was rent, That is, when the Lord Jesus died,
something happened over in the temple. That veil that pictured
the Lord Jesus, it was rent in two from top to
bottom, exposing the innermost chambers of the Holy of Holies. indicating that by the rent flesh
of the Son of God, by the rent veil of His flesh, that way to
God has been opened up. And you know what? We see the
glory of His grace, the glory of His salvation, the glory of
the way He shows mercy to folks like us through the rent veil
of the Lord Jesus Christ. But that veil of His flesh, it
covered His deity. For 33 years or so, there is
the glory of God. Walking in the midst of man,
there is God's everlasting Son. And nobody recognized Him. Why
not? The veil. The veil. The majority of the people never
saw His glory. Oh, He had lots of followers.
In John chapter 6 we saw He had thousands, thousands of people
followed Him. But when He set forth His doctrine,
they ceased to follow Him because they were offended. And you think,
well, He had so many, He had multitudes of people who believed
Him after His resurrection and after His ascension. That group gathered together
in Jerusalem. You know how many it was? 120 people, that was it. They saw His glory. They saw
His glory by faith. The others didn't say, have you
seen His glory? Have you seen His glory? As it
says in 2 Corinthians 4, the very glory of God shining in
the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, this was the Lord of glory,
but people didn't see His glory. And when He said these unusual
things about Himself, they just said, this cannot be! He's just
a man! They heard Him say things like
this, I was sent into the world by the Father. They said, that
can't be. He said, I'm the Savior. I've
come to the world not to judge it, but to save the world of
my elect. He said to them, if you destroy
this temple, this body, I'll raise it again in three days.
And they said, who is this to talk this way? He's just another
man. He said He's the only source
of life. He said, Oh, the Old Testament
speaks of Me. He told them in John 5, Search
the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life. These
are they that testify of Me. And they said, Who does He think
He is? What is the problem? They didn't
see His glory. He said God was His Father, thereby
making Himself equal with God. He said that all men should worship
the Son even as they worship the Father. He said He gives spiritual life
to whoever He wants to. He said, someday I'm going to
resurrect all the dead. And they'll all stand before
me in judgment. And they said, but you're just
a man. He said, I'm the bread that came
down from heaven. You've got to eat my flesh and
drink my blood. And they said, you're just the
son of Joseph. He said He was given a people
to save and that they would come to Him and they would believe
Him and He would raise them all up at the last day. This is a
man, to appearance sake, looked no different than any other Galilean
man. And so the things that He had
said to the religious leaders were absolutely absurd. In fact, They took it even stronger
than that. They said, this is a blasphemous
man. This is a blasphemous man. So they're ready to kill him. And indeed our Lord was made
under the law to redeem them that were under the law. And so He kept these feast days
But it isn't the time for Him to die. Now they wanted to kill
Him. They're ready to kill Him. In
fact, if you look a little further, go back to John chapter 7, look
at verse 32. Look at verse 32. And we'll get
to this maybe next week. in detail, but the Pharisees,
they heard the people murmured such things concerning him. And the Pharisees and the chief
priests, they sent officers to take him. They sent the temple
police. They said, go arrest him. They're
ready to take him now. A man who dares to say the kind
of things that he said, they're ready to kill him. But it isn't his time yet. So, when He does go to the Feast
of Tabernacles, He doesn't go with His brethren, but rather
He lets them go ahead. Look at verse 10. But when His
brethren were gone up, then He went up also unto the Feast,
not openly with them, but in secret. Then the Jews, and hopefully
we're We're grasping this that whenever you see, almost every
time you see the expression, the Jews. By that is meant the Jewish leaders
who are bloodthirsty. Like go back to verse 1. John
7, verse 1, After these things Jesus walked in Galilee, for
He would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill Him.
The Jews, that is, the Jewish leaders. And so when His brothers,
they get to the Feast of Tabernacles, the Jews, the Jewish leaders,
they're looking for one of their brothers, they're looking for
Jesus. And they go to his brothers and
say, where is he? You know who we're talking about.
They didn't even call him by name. They just said, where is he? Then the people began to murmur
among themselves concerning him. Verse 12, some said, he's a good
man. Others said, no, He deceiveth
the people. And there were even some people
who seemed to believe Him, but verse 13, how bid no man speak
openly of Him for fear of the Jews. The Jews. There were some sacred disciples
like Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, He was a secret disciple who
for fear of the Jews, fear of being cast out, fear of being
separated from them, put out of the synagogue, put out of
the temple. I tell you, the fear of man. The scripture says, the fear
of man bringeth a snare. The Apostle Paul wrote, and Bill
read to us there in Galatians chapter 1, he said, if I seek
to please men, I'm not the servant of Christ. If I'm fearful of
men and I'm going to try to please them, I ain't pleasing God. I'm not pleasing God then. The Jews said, where is He? We
want your brother. Verse 14, now about the midst
of the feast. Now this feast lasted seven days. The eighth day was the main day
and then the day of dismissal. Our Lord Jesus, He went up to
the temple in the midst of the feast. So we're talking Tuesday,
Wednesday, something like that. This is in mid-October. He went up to the temple And
as he always did, he began to teach. Verse 14. And the Jews
marveled, saying, I don't know if this man letters. Literally,
Scriptures. How does he know the Scriptures?
Has he never learned? He didn't go to our school of
the prophets. He never sat at the feet of any
of the rabbis. And yet, when he taught the Scriptures,
the Scriptures just so flowed out of his mouth, just wonderfully. People said, never a man spoke
like this man. In fact, I told you about the
temple police that were sent to arrest him. Look a little
further over in chapter 7. Look at verse 45. So we hear
the Sanhedrin, they've sent the temple police to arrest him.
So in verse 45, then came the officers to the chief priests
and the Pharisees. Here come these policemen. And
guess what? They don't have a prisoner. They
don't have anybody with them. They were sent to arrest Jesus
of Nazareth and they come back to the Sanhedrin and He's not
with them. And the Sanhedrin asks them,
last line of verse 45, Why have ye not brought him? You know
what the temple policemen said? Verse 46, Never a man spake like
this man. We never heard a teacher like
this. The old Jewish rabbis, they referred to the traditions
of the fathers. They quoted old rabbi so-and-so
and this another rabbi who was dead and gone. They quoted him.
But the Lord Jesus, He quoted God. He just used the Scriptures. And so effortlessly, the Scriptures
just poured out of His lips. He spoke with great clarity. He spoke simply. He spoke truthfully. He spoke with authority. He didn't
have to have notes like we have to have. It's in His heart. It's in His mind. It's in His
soul. He is the truth. He is truth
incarnate. And He preached to these people
and even the temple police said, I'll tell you why we didn't arrest
Him. We never heard a preacher like this. We never heard him
talk like that before. So the people ask in verse 15,
I'll know of this man letters, having never learned. And Jesus
answered them, and here's what He said. First of all, He set
forth His doctrine. He said, My doctrine is not mine,
but His. It's His doctrine. Now, it is
His doctrine in the sense that He's God. He is forever. He is the eternal Word. But He is speaking as Jehovah's
faithful servant. And being brought into submission
to the Father as that servant who served the Father as our
representative and as our substitute, he said, this is not my doctrine.
In other words, it didn't originate with a man. This doctrine originated
with God. It's the doctrine of God. And
I mentioned to you before, most of the time in Scriptures when
you're talking about the body of truth, it's not doctrines,
it's doctrine. Because there's one body of truth.
There are lots of false doctrines, just one true doctrine. That's
the doctrine of God. The doctrine of our Savior. The
doctrine of redemption. The doctrine of substitution.
The doctrine of satisfaction. It's His doctrine. It's God's
doctrine. Our brother read to us from Deuteronomy
32 to begin the service. My doctrine shall drop as the
rain. My speech, my word shall distill
as the dew. Refreshing. Reviving. This is God's doctrine. It's
full of life. God's doctrine is full of life. And when the Savior said, my
doctrine is not mine, you know, we have to say the same thing,
don't we? My doctrine is not mine. Now, if you're a Mormon,
you're going to have to say, Mormon doctrine is from Joseph
Smith. If you're a Jehovah's Witness,
well, my doctrine was from Mr. Russell. Our doctrine, it didn't originate
with us. So you people preach some of
the same things Spurgeon preached. It's not Spurgeon's doctrine.
You're Calvinists over there. This is not Calvin's doctrine.
This is not Luther's doctrine. I differ with those guys on several
things. Infant baptism among many. Sabbath
day observance among several others. Whose doctrine is this? This
is God's doctrine. If this is not God's doctrine,
we just close the building and go our way. It's got to be God's
doctrine. The doctrine of grace, the doctrine
of Christ Jesus, the doctrine of total depravity and unconditional
election and limited atonement and irresistible grace and perseverance
of the saints. That's God's doctrine. God's
doctrine is salvation by grace alone, through Christ alone,
revealed in the Word of God alone, received by God-given faith alone. That's doctrine, true doctrine. This is God's Gospel. He's the
author of it. Christ is the subject of it.
He's the glory of it. What's secondly? His will. Verse
17, if any man will do His will. If any man wants to know the
will of God, he'll know the doctrine. Well, what is God's will? We've
already studied that. This foundation has already been
laid back in chapter 6. Look at verse 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. For I came down from heaven not
to do mine own will, but His will, that is, the will of Him
that sent me. Well, what is the Father's will? That all which He hath given
me should lose nothing, but I should raise it up again at the last
day. What is God's will? What is His
will? Look at verse 40. And this is
the will of Him that sent me. That everyone which seeth the
Son, seeth Him by faith, seeth Him as one being a needy sinner
who is looking to the Savior who can meet all of his needs.
Everyone who seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting
life. And I'll raise Him up again at
the last day. That's His will. That's God's
will. And I tell you, if you want to
know this doctrine, if you want to know the redemptive will of
God, if God has made you willing to lay aside your religious traditions
and all that garbage that you used to believe, and now you
come to Jesus Christ alone, He'll teach you His will. over in Acts chapter 22. He was
in Jerusalem. They said, well, tell us what
happened to him. He gives a whole, he rehearses
everything, he reviews everything that happened to him on the Damascus
road. Then he tells them what Ananias
told him, what the preacher told him. God's chosen you to know
His will. What is He talking about? To
know His will. To know His redemptive will. To know His saving will. To know
how God saves sinners. I tell you, if God has ever been
merciful to you and quickened your dead soul and opened your
eyes to see the glory of God in Christ Jesus, He set you apart
to know His will, to know His doctrine and to know His will,
how God saves sinners. And then thirdly, verse 18, here's
His glory. He that speaketh of Himself seeketh
His own glory, but He that seeketh His glory that sent Him, the
same is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Jesus Christ. The Pharisees, the Sadducees,
the Sanhedrin, the chief priests, they all sought their glory,
their own glory. But this man, Christ Jesus, He
sought the Father's glory only. He said, I always do those things
that please Him. Here's the perfect man standing
right in front of them. Here's the God-man standing right
in front of them. He didn't invent His message.
He did not come as one who was not sent. He did not seek to
draw attention to Himself, but to the Father who sent Him. And here's a standing rule. If you want to know whether a
man is speaking for God, speaking the truth, then ask this simple
question, who is getting the glory? You take Arminianism, Arminian
free will religion, who gets the glory? Ultimately, the sinner
who exercises his free will. That shows you it's wrong. in churches who immerse people
in order to baptize them into the kingdom of God, wash away
their sins, baptismal regeneration. They come up out of the water
and people hug them and say, I'm glad you finally decided
to be baptized and wash your sins away. Who's getting the
glory? But in this gospel of grace,
And you read in Ephesians 1, you got the work of the Father,
the work of the Son, and the work of the Holy Spirit. And
with each one of them, you know what it says after setting forth
their work? To the praise of the glory of
His grace. Who's getting the glory? Oh,
that'll tell you a whole lot about a man's ministry. In fact,
it'll tell you a whole lot about what you've got. If you get any of the glory,
you better get rid of it. Whatever salvation you think
you've got, you better dismiss it, open up the window and throw
it out. Because this salvation of sinners
gives God all the glory. It's His doctrine. It's His will. It's His glory. That's what the
Savior said. Well, let's sing a final song,
63.